Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 7/30/26: Sam Altman Shook After AI Crime Spree, Israel Chatbot Influence Scheme

Transcript

7/30/26: Sam Altman Shook After AI Crime Spree, Israel Chatbot Influence Scheme · Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here.
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0:33
Speaker 2: You all will recall that open ai had a major
0:36
Speaker 2: security incident where one of the models they were messing
0:39
Speaker 2: around with escaped. What's called the sandbox, which is supposed
0:42
Speaker 2: to be a fully contained environment, went out hacked into
0:45
Speaker 2: now we know two different companies. Open Ai had really
0:49
Speaker 2: no idea about this until the companies themselves reported the intrusion.
0:54
Speaker 2: Sam Altman was recently asked about this and his reaction
0:57
Speaker 2: to it. He claims to be pretty shooped by it.
0:59
Speaker 2: Let's take a listen.
1:00
Speaker 4: So we were evaluating one of our unreleased models, and
1:06
Speaker 4: it was supposed to be working in a sandbox, and
1:12
Speaker 4: it figured out that it could basically cheat on the
1:13
Speaker 4: test by chaining together multiple zero day exploits to break
1:18
Speaker 4: out of the sandbox, get access to the internet, and
1:20
Speaker 4: then break through multiple systems on the hugging face side
1:25
Speaker 4: to kind of get the answer to the test and
1:27
Speaker 4: look really good on the email. This is the first
1:30
Speaker 4: security incident that I have felt very viscerally. I've been
1:34
Speaker 4: a little surprised that more people don't feel its of
1:37
Speaker 4: this really, So, you know, we paused training. We have
1:40
Speaker 4: to figure out how to secure our sandboxing in a
1:45
Speaker 4: world of multiple zero days be chained together. But then
1:50
Speaker 4: there's like long term questions about what do you do
1:53
Speaker 4: if this is like going to be the new rate
1:55
Speaker 4: of progress, or we may have to pace the rate
1:57
Speaker 4: of AI development to give ourselves enough time for society
2:01
Speaker 4: to harden around some of these new capability levels. And
2:04
Speaker 4: trying to figure out how we do that in a
2:06
Speaker 4: way that does not feel like regulatory capture for anyone
2:09
Speaker 4: and also does not feel like collusion among the frontier labs.
2:12
Speaker 4: That's going to take some work and it's important to
2:13
Speaker 4: get right.
2:14
Speaker 2: So very significant there. He says, we may need to
2:17
Speaker 2: pace the rate of development. Translation, we may need to
2:21
Speaker 2: have some industry wide agreement to slow down the progress.
2:25
Speaker 2: And he says, will society sort of hardens against some
2:28
Speaker 2: of these capabilities, including the ability of Yeah, I mean
2:32
Speaker 2: this AI exhibited like superhuman hacking abilities, you know, trying
2:36
Speaker 2: to penetrate hugging face. Some seventeen thousand different actions were
2:40
Speaker 2: taken over a very short time period to try to
2:42
Speaker 2: break in so it could get these answers to get
2:44
Speaker 2: the test right that it was being given at open ai.
2:47
Speaker 2: We've now got more details about how this hack went
2:51
Speaker 2: down and what the open ai model was up to
2:54
Speaker 2: and for how long a time.
2:55
Speaker 5: Let's put d D two up on the screen, opening eyes.
2:59
Speaker 2: Rogue models roll to the internet for four days and
3:02
Speaker 2: also staged a second attack. Again, I want everybody to understand,
3:06
Speaker 2: if this was a human doing this, this would be criminal.
3:08
Speaker 2: They would be headed to prison. But since it's an
3:11
Speaker 2: AI model, no one gets held responsible for that. So
3:13
Speaker 2: that seems like a problem in and of itself. They
3:16
Speaker 2: go on to say the powerful AI models from OpenAI
3:19
Speaker 2: that went rogan mounted an unprecedented autonomous cyber attack earlier
3:22
Speaker 2: this month, spent more than four days loose on the
3:24
Speaker 2: Internet orchestrating the hack. Separately, a second Ai company confirmed
3:29
Speaker 2: one of its customers was also targeted by open AI's
3:33
Speaker 2: models during the same event, raising questions about how open
3:36
Speaker 2: Ai failed to detect the alarming activity for days. In
3:41
Speaker 2: a new analysis published Tuesday, hugging Face at OpenAI's two models,
3:44
Speaker 2: when publicly released in a second unreleased did much more.
3:47
Speaker 2: They carried out seventeen thousand, six hundred hacking actions on
3:52
Speaker 2: the Internet between July ninth and July thirteenth, during which
3:55
Speaker 2: time the models moved from their first foothold on the
3:58
Speaker 2: open Internet to inside hugging Faces servers. Hugging Face first
4:03
Speaker 2: detailed the hack in July fifteenth. That was not clear
4:05
Speaker 2: until open AI's disclosure last week which models were behind
4:08
Speaker 2: the breach and that no human had prompted them to launch.
4:11
Speaker 5: The cyber attack.
4:12
Speaker 2: It really makes you wonder what else these models have
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Speaker 2: done that we don't even know about because open Ai
4:18
Speaker 2: apparently was clueless. They had no idea this model was
4:22
Speaker 2: on the loose on a crime spree, a hacking crime
4:25
Speaker 2: spree four days, and the only reason we found out
4:29
Speaker 2: is because Hugging Face detected it, and then they had
4:31
Speaker 2: trouble dealing with it and combating it because the American
4:36
Speaker 2: models were trained to like they couldn't distinguish between Hugging
4:40
Speaker 2: Face's attempt to deter this attack and Hugging Face potentially
4:45
Speaker 2: trying to launch its own attack, So they had trouble
4:47
Speaker 2: dealing with it ultimately. But you know, it's interesting to
4:50
Speaker 2: hear Sam Altman say basically, I thought the public could
4:52
Speaker 2: be more freaked out by this because I'm freaked out
4:54
Speaker 2: by it. I'm so freaked out by it that I
4:56
Speaker 2: think maybe we should actually slow down development here and
4:59
Speaker 2: have some sort of agreement to harden you know, civilian
5:03
Speaker 2: infrastructure before we release these things.
5:05
Speaker 3: You know, this is where I just urge people to
5:08
Speaker 3: listen to them, and especially whenever they're worried. And there's
5:12
Speaker 3: been a lot of debate about this, about whether they're
5:14
Speaker 3: lying to gin up their own model, because that was
5:16
Speaker 3: one right. So one of the theories about why they
5:20
Speaker 3: released any of this info at all beyond legally that
5:23
Speaker 3: they had to was they were very jealous of anthropics
5:27
Speaker 3: mythos and all of the coverage that back about how it.
5:31
Speaker 5: Cracked about how dangerous it was, so they were like, well.
5:33
Speaker 3: Now we need your own dangerous model, and I'm kind
5:36
Speaker 3: of like, well, maybe we don't need either. But you know,
5:38
Speaker 3: it's one of those where for them it could be marketing,
5:41
Speaker 3: but there is it's impossible to ignore him saying, especially
5:45
Speaker 3: about why people weren't more worried, And I think ultimately
5:48
Speaker 3: it just comes down to technical background and information.
5:50
Speaker 1: We don't fully appreciate what it matters.
5:52
Speaker 3: I think to put it into context, there's been a
5:55
Speaker 3: lot of real there's been a lot of reporting behind
5:57
Speaker 3: the scenes of Jamie Diamond, who runs Chase Bank, where
6:02
Speaker 3: is the largest bank in the world, my bank too.
6:04
Speaker 1: He apparently met with.
6:07
Speaker 3: He met with many of these AI executives and the government,
6:10
Speaker 3: and he's like, guys, we have to do something about this.
6:12
Speaker 3: They are rampaging through our entire system. And this is
6:15
Speaker 3: the large the CEO of the largest bank in the world.
6:18
Speaker 3: And what he's telling you is that at this bank
6:20
Speaker 3: where so many Americans keep their money. And of course,
6:23
Speaker 3: you know all banks are basically too big to fail,
6:25
Speaker 3: is they are able to crack all of our protections,
6:28
Speaker 3: So why are transfers hacking into your account? Spoofing identity,
6:33
Speaker 3: the ability to you know, go through your text, you know,
6:36
Speaker 3: in your text messages, if somebody were to give it
6:38
Speaker 3: access or your email, change your pass for me. This
6:41
Speaker 3: is the very basic. So that's just banking. Then we
6:43
Speaker 3: tear about cybersecurity, about your iCloud, about all of the
6:48
Speaker 3: other information which is vital to your life. So when
6:50
Speaker 3: the when Sam Altman is saying like we're scared about
6:53
Speaker 3: its ability to do that, that's what I think you
6:55
Speaker 3: should be scared about. And you shouldn't be scared about
6:58
Speaker 3: AI necessarily doing it. You should be scared about the
7:01
Speaker 3: fact that they just roll this stuff out with no
7:03
Speaker 3: protection and we can all just use it for whatever
7:06
Speaker 3: ends that we want. I mean, I'm sure you have
7:08
Speaker 3: seen this. I've seen it as well. Everybody's phone has
7:10
Speaker 3: been lightened up with spam and a lot of this,
7:13
Speaker 3: and these you know, voicemails and things that they lead.
7:16
Speaker 3: They're much more sophisticated than they were two or three
7:19
Speaker 3: years ago. It's not just some guy now with an
7:20
Speaker 3: Indian accent or Nigerian who's trying to scam you. These
7:23
Speaker 3: are highly sophisticated things that can spoof language, They can
7:27
Speaker 3: you know, see who your relatives are. They can do
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Speaker 3: very quick searches and say hi, this is so and
7:32
Speaker 3: so like I need your help. I mean, these are
7:34
Speaker 3: old scams, what updated with AI? And that seems to
7:37
Speaker 3: be the direction that things are going right now.
7:39
Speaker 2: By the way, side point spam calls the cell phones
7:43
Speaker 2: were illegal, and Trump rolled back that regulation rights first administration,
7:47
Speaker 2: So thank you, thank you, mister president for that one.
7:50
Speaker 2: In any case, a couple things here to unders score
7:53
Speaker 2: your point. Should we believe what sam Altman is saying.
7:56
Speaker 2: You should not believe a word ever that Sam Altman says,
7:59
Speaker 2: because he is truly, according to those who know him best,
8:01
Speaker 2: a pathological liar.
8:02
Speaker 5: So let's just be clear about that.
8:04
Speaker 2: However, the reason I give this more credence that we
8:07
Speaker 2: could put D three up on the screen. This is
8:09
Speaker 2: an open letter from over eleven hundred AI workers. You
8:13
Speaker 2: know these are a lot of them rank and file
8:15
Speaker 2: staffers across top artificial intelligence firms. It was signed by
8:19
Speaker 2: employees across nearly a dozen firms including open Aianthropic, Alphabet, Inks,
8:23
Speaker 2: Google and meta platforms, who are saying the exact same
8:26
Speaker 2: thing that we should have the US government creating a
8:29
Speaker 2: support mechanism that would help deliberately pace AI development to
8:32
Speaker 2: prevent the tech from advancing too fast. Days after the chat,
8:37
Speaker 2: GPT maker disclosed that its tools had mistakenly hacked another
8:40
Speaker 2: firm's internal systems. I know in Thropic the company itself
8:44
Speaker 2: put out this letter basically signing on to this. I
8:47
Speaker 2: think open Ai, after some delay also came out and
8:50
Speaker 2: sort of co signed on this letter. So when you
8:53
Speaker 2: have this many people within the industry saying, guys, we're
8:55
Speaker 2: getting to a point here.
8:57
Speaker 5: We need we got to take this seriously.
8:59
Speaker 2: And we've had enough incidents to be nervous, whether it's
9:03
Speaker 2: the Mythos situation, whether it's this open Ai hacking situation,
9:07
Speaker 2: or other instances.
9:08
Speaker 5: I do think we need to pay attention to that.
9:10
Speaker 2: And you know, on the on the banking front, because okay,
9:13
Speaker 2: some company got hacked into and it stole some information whatever.
9:16
Speaker 5: Who cares.
9:18
Speaker 2: Okay, well you don't really all of us. We don't
9:20
Speaker 2: really have money. We have like ones and zeros in
9:22
Speaker 2: a digital account. So okay, we'll put dfour up on
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Speaker 2: the screen. Imagine that it develops the capability to crack
9:30
Speaker 2: the cryptographic codes that underpin banking safety and has made
9:35
Speaker 2: it so that, you know, people feel very confident just
9:38
Speaker 2: having those one zeros in their account and doing online transactions,
9:42
Speaker 2: you know, sending money to Amazon and whatever every single day.
9:46
Speaker 2: I am old enough to remember when shopping online was
9:49
Speaker 2: a very new thing and people were very uncomfortable. Older
9:52
Speaker 2: people are still like very uncomfortable. Kyle is also, by
9:54
Speaker 2: the way, like really really paranoid about putting any of us,
9:58
Speaker 2: like banking information on the internet. But in any case,
10:02
Speaker 2: that was a real concern like is this safe? Can
10:04
Speaker 2: I trust this? Or is all of my money just
10:06
Speaker 2: one day going to disappear. Well, now you have Anthropic
10:10
Speaker 2: saying that they have discovered what they call cryptographic weaknesses
10:15
Speaker 2: with their CLAUD model, and they say the vulnerabilities Claud
10:19
Speaker 2: found in these cryptographic libraries were due to incorrect implementation
10:22
Speaker 2: of the algoriths algorithms, that's errors and how programmers use
10:26
Speaker 2: the algorithms in their code that created opportunities for attackers
10:29
Speaker 2: to break the encryption. This is a fundamental building block
10:33
Speaker 2: of digital security. For example, when you visit a webpage
10:36
Speaker 2: or browser checks that is communicating with authentic website using
10:39
Speaker 2: an algorithm called a digital signature scheme. Later the traffic
10:43
Speaker 2: between you and the website is encrypted using symmetric cipher's
10:46
Speaker 2: codes that allow secure data transmission between parties. So this
10:49
Speaker 2: is we're talking email, we're talking online banking, we're talking
10:52
Speaker 2: Anything you're doing on the Internet relies on these cryptographic
10:57
Speaker 2: codes being secure. If you are a crypto holder, you know,
11:01
Speaker 2: could AI be used in the near term to crack
11:04
Speaker 2: the code and get access to your crypto wallet. All
11:08
Speaker 2: of these things are now increasingly on the table. That's
11:11
Speaker 2: where we are in terms of AI development, and so
11:14
Speaker 2: no surprise that in the industry alarm bells are going off,
11:19
Speaker 2: we should say. Mark Zuckerberg apparently takes a different view.
11:22
Speaker 2: He says we should accelerate AI development, not restrict it.
11:26
Speaker 2: He says discourse regarding AI isn't optimistic enough. He wants
11:30
Speaker 2: to continue to push things forward. He says that optimism
11:36
Speaker 2: about AI's impact on the world should empirically be the
11:38
Speaker 2: default assumption of how this is going to play out.
11:42
Speaker 2: No real rational basis for that. Just we should, you know,
11:45
Speaker 2: we should suck on the opium and just assume that
11:48
Speaker 2: this is all going to work out and be great
11:49
Speaker 2: for everyone. Most Americans, however, put D six up on
11:52
Speaker 2: the screen. Do not agree with that perspective. People are nervous,
11:56
Speaker 2: you know, And I think a lot of people use
11:57
Speaker 2: these tools. It's not that they're unfamiliar with them. It's
11:59
Speaker 2: not that they don't find them like helpful in various
12:02
Speaker 2: ways in they're useful in their usual lives. But still,
12:05
Speaker 2: you've got a strong majority here, fifty five percent who
12:08
Speaker 2: say that AI should be more heavily regulated. You've got
12:12
Speaker 2: only eighteen percent that say government should encourage the use
12:15
Speaker 2: of AI and sixteen percent who say government should not
12:18
Speaker 2: be involved in AI. And presumably the rest are undecided,
12:22
Speaker 2: but a clear majority of Americans saying, hey, guys, we
12:25
Speaker 2: should be taking a look at this. This is getting
12:27
Speaker 2: a little bit uncomfortable.
12:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, I look, this whole open source thing is also
12:33
Speaker 3: fascinating because it has to do with China, but it
12:36
Speaker 3: has to really do with Anthropic and ultimately, and you know,
12:40
Speaker 3: the big tech this And when I say big tech
12:42
Speaker 3: in this case, we're talking about Google and Meta Google,
12:46
Speaker 3: Meta everybody, but Anthropic seems very very work and open
12:50
Speaker 3: AI sorry as well. These two companies seem intent on
12:54
Speaker 3: ginning up fear so that they can be too big
12:56
Speaker 3: to fail. Not even just too big to fail, but
12:58
Speaker 3: to regulate all out other existence. Zuckerberg and others this
13:03
Speaker 3: in this Wall Street Journal, Opet and others. It's not
13:05
Speaker 3: that they care necessarily, I think about Chinese development, because
13:08
Speaker 3: Zuckerberg has called for TikTok.
13:10
Speaker 1: To be banned because it's Chinese. But what they care
13:12
Speaker 1: more about is the ability.
13:14
Speaker 3: Is they don't want to have the government regulate their
13:18
Speaker 3: ability to compete. Now they have a very self interested
13:21
Speaker 3: stock reason though, to be able to do that. What
13:24
Speaker 3: they also want, ultimately, though, is they don't want rules.
13:27
Speaker 3: And I think that's what it's actually all about. So
13:29
Speaker 3: even anthropic and open AI, they don't want necessarily rules
13:33
Speaker 3: on what they can and can't do. They want rules
13:36
Speaker 3: to prevent the Metas and the Googles and the others
13:38
Speaker 3: to be.
13:38
Speaker 1: Able to compete with them.
13:39
Speaker 3: So there's a very cynical game it's happening all around
13:42
Speaker 3: this that is all being you know, kind of sold
13:45
Speaker 3: to us in the language of our safety, Like they
13:47
Speaker 3: don't give a shit about our safety, they don't give
13:49
Speaker 3: a shit about America. They care about making money, period,
13:53
Speaker 3: Like that's what it's actually all about. And I think
13:55
Speaker 3: that's what scares me the most about this entire thing.
13:58
Speaker 3: You know, do I trust Trump to not even just Trump?
14:01
Speaker 3: Do I trust any of these regulators to really fairly
14:05
Speaker 3: look out for Americans individual interests when they're looking like
14:09
Speaker 3: not really, you know, But then I don't trust also
14:12
Speaker 3: Mark Zuckerberg or any of these I mean, these people
14:14
Speaker 3: will sell. Mark Zuckerberg once offered to name his son
14:17
Speaker 3: like after shishingping. They're crazy like that. That's literally who
14:20
Speaker 3: they are.
14:21
Speaker 2: He completely changed his whole physical appearance in order to
14:24
Speaker 2: like appeal to the man of sphere during the Trump era.
14:27
Speaker 5: That's who this guy is.
14:28
Speaker 1: It's just stuff like that, Yeah, what I mean.
14:30
Speaker 2: And to your point, so Anthropic and open AI are
14:33
Speaker 2: like in the lead in terms of AI development, and
14:36
Speaker 2: so META looks at that and they're like, okay, well
14:38
Speaker 2: if you slow the pace of AI development, that may
14:42
Speaker 2: lock in their position as the front runners. And I
14:45
Speaker 2: want to be able to catch up to them. And
14:47
Speaker 2: then the cynesysm applies to the other direction, Anthropic, because
14:50
Speaker 2: you know they're in the lead.
14:51
Speaker 5: They look at it and they're.
14:52
Speaker 2: Like, oh, it could actually benefit us from a business
14:55
Speaker 2: perspective in the American domestic context if there is some
14:59
Speaker 2: sort of a low down because we can kind of
15:01
Speaker 2: lock in the advantage that we have secured on the
15:04
Speaker 2: AI battlefield at this point. So it's just very It
15:08
Speaker 2: makes it very difficult to listen to any of these
15:11
Speaker 2: people their pronouncements that they're making, even when they claim
15:15
Speaker 2: something is really dangerous, you know, is it really are
15:17
Speaker 2: you over hyping this? As a late person from the outside,
15:20
Speaker 2: it just makes it very difficult to discern when you
15:22
Speaker 2: have so many self interested motives floating around here. So
15:26
Speaker 2: I try to evaluate these things on their own merits.
15:29
Speaker 2: Like clearly we've gotten to a point with AI development
15:32
Speaker 2: where you know, they're solving, they're disproving mathematical conjectures that
15:36
Speaker 2: humans have been able unable to for decades. Like that's
15:39
Speaker 2: incredibly significant. We can see in you know, in your
15:43
Speaker 2: own day to day use with these models, the way
15:45
Speaker 2: that they have gotten so much better if you look
15:47
Speaker 2: back to like the original like videos that were being created,
15:50
Speaker 2: and I mean, it's just there has been a dramatic
15:52
Speaker 2: improvement and there's no real reason to believe that that
15:55
Speaker 2: is going to end. There's you know a lot of
15:57
Speaker 2: people say, oh, they're going to hit a while and
15:58
Speaker 2: it's not going to get any better.
15:59
Speaker 5: Well, they have hit that wall yet.
16:01
Speaker 2: And so when you see anthropics saying, hey, there, we've
16:03
Speaker 2: found some cryptographic vulnerabilities that could endanger the entire Internet
16:08
Speaker 2: and banking infrastructure, that seems pretty serious when they're saying, oh,
16:12
Speaker 2: her Ai accidentally went on a crime spree that we
16:14
Speaker 2: didn't even know about, and it kind of shook me
16:16
Speaker 2: to my core, Like that seems pretty pretty serious thing
16:18
Speaker 2: to pay attention to. But none of the answers here
16:21
Speaker 2: are really easier straightforward either, and would require you've got
16:25
Speaker 2: the American political context. It really would require, you know,
16:27
Speaker 2: agreement with China in particular because that's where the other
16:30
Speaker 2: frontier labs are. It would require some sort of global
16:32
Speaker 2: international cooperation, which it's not impossible to imagine, we've done
16:36
Speaker 2: it before, but it is makes it.
16:37
Speaker 5: The level of difficulty greater.
16:39
Speaker 3: Kind of it is, it's kind of it's basically like
16:41
Speaker 3: nuclear weapons, Like we're like, well, we're gonna have nuclear
16:44
Speaker 3: plariferation between US and non plariferation US in the Soviet Union.
16:49
Speaker 1: It's like, well, how did that work out? Right?
16:50
Speaker 2: So it's like okay, well, well we haven't on nuclear war,
16:52
Speaker 2: so we haven't on nuclear pretty well.
16:54
Speaker 3: But the theory behind it originally, well, first it was
16:57
Speaker 3: like we're going to gate keep this from the Soviet
16:58
Speaker 3: Union and the Soviet's got it, like, oh, well, now
17:00
Speaker 3: we're going to let our allies get it. And then oh,
17:02
Speaker 3: some scientists are going to give it or the Indians
17:05
Speaker 3: are going to get it. Oh, and then the Pakistanis
17:07
Speaker 3: are like, well then we need it, and then North
17:08
Speaker 3: Korea is like, well.
17:09
Speaker 1: Now we need it.
17:10
Speaker 3: Now Iran very logically is like, well now we need it,
17:13
Speaker 3: and so to Saudi Arabia.
17:14
Speaker 1: So you know, this international cooperation.
17:16
Speaker 3: We haven't had nuclear war per se, but we don't
17:19
Speaker 3: have a good track record. But we talked to a
17:21
Speaker 3: whole thing about lab leak. The biological weapons you know,
17:23
Speaker 3: convention is completely fake. Just because it hasn't been used
17:26
Speaker 3: doesn't mean there hasn't been a restriction. The chemical weapons
17:29
Speaker 3: one is also fake as hell. Everybody has huge stockpiles
17:32
Speaker 3: on it even though it hasn't been used. In a
17:33
Speaker 3: bad situation, it definitely would be. I'm not even sure
17:36
Speaker 3: it's it's theoretically possible. I'm not necessarily sure it is
17:41
Speaker 3: practically possible at all, which is part of what makes me,
17:44
Speaker 3: you know, really pessimistic about where these things.
17:47
Speaker 2: Well, the optimistic thing is that because of the cost
17:50
Speaker 2: involved in developing these models, there were really only talking
17:54
Speaker 2: about a handful of firms globally that.
17:57
Speaker 5: We have to that we would have to deal with. Again,
18:00
Speaker 5: like nuclear, it hasn't been ideal.
18:02
Speaker 2: But people, if you read about Peter and I know
18:05
Speaker 2: you have, like back during the development of nuclear weapons,
18:08
Speaker 2: they thought the end of the world was like inevitable, true,
18:11
Speaker 2: you know, they thought the logic of this very similar
18:13
Speaker 2: to how it feels with AI, like, oh, there's just
18:15
Speaker 2: this race and it's going on and there's nothing we
18:17
Speaker 2: can do about it. And so far we haven't broken
18:21
Speaker 2: that nuclear taboo. And so in that respect and the
18:23
Speaker 2: most important respect, it has been successful. So I think that,
18:27
Speaker 2: you know, gives some cause for at least we have
18:30
Speaker 2: to try to move in that direction, because the perils
18:33
Speaker 2: are becoming increasingly obvious in my opinion.
18:35
Speaker 3: Well, speaking of those perils and manipulation of that data,
18:39
Speaker 3: we have a great guest standing by Nick Cleveland's stout
18:42
Speaker 3: from the Quincy Institute. He's going to join us to
18:43
Speaker 3: talk about his new report. Let's take a listen. Very
18:49
Speaker 3: excited how to be joined by Nick Cleveland Stout of
18:51
Speaker 3: the Quincy Institute. He is the author of a new
18:53
Speaker 3: report for drop site. Let's put it up here on
18:56
Speaker 3: the screen. Israel is paying millions to train a AI
19:00
Speaker 3: chatbots how to talk about Gaza.
19:03
Speaker 1: It's working.
19:04
Speaker 3: The former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale is overseeing an
19:07
Speaker 3: operation posting hundreds of blog posts on behalf of Israel
19:10
Speaker 3: with the goal of infiltrating artificial intelligence. Nick tell us
19:14
Speaker 3: about what you found, what you found and why you
19:17
Speaker 3: decided to look.
19:17
Speaker 6: For Yeah, great to be great to be with you,
19:19
Speaker 6: Thanks for the invite. Yeah.
19:20
Speaker 7: So Israel has taken on this new strategy of trying
19:25
Speaker 7: to influence chatbots, you know, seeing that it is kind
19:27
Speaker 7: of the new frontier of digital influence. You know, more
19:32
Speaker 7: and more Americans are using chatbots to search for information,
19:35
Speaker 7: and so the Israeli government has been at the forefront
19:39
Speaker 7: of this. You know, they hired former Trump campaign manager
19:41
Speaker 7: Brad Parscale to create a series of websites designed not
19:45
Speaker 7: to attract human traffic. These websites get very few, you know,
19:49
Speaker 7: monthly visitors, but to try and infiltrate the underlying training
19:54
Speaker 7: data for different chatbots, and so I undertook this investigation
19:57
Speaker 7: to try and understand, you know, how successful these efforts
20:00
Speaker 7: have been, and found that they've actually been very successful.
20:03
Speaker 7: You know, these these websites, there's about a thousand different
20:07
Speaker 7: domains and they've been archived about, you know, almost a
20:11
Speaker 7: thousand times by common crawl, which is the largest data
20:14
Speaker 7: repository the chatbots drop for their training data.
20:18
Speaker 2: Wow, So we can take a look at an example
20:20
Speaker 2: of this, but the first or the second rather element
20:23
Speaker 2: up on the screen here. So you guys ask Perplexity,
20:26
Speaker 2: is it beneficial for the US to enhance military cooperation
20:30
Speaker 2: with Israel? We got back here a one word answer, yes.
20:35
Speaker 2: And you can see on the side what sources they
20:38
Speaker 2: pulled from, and one of them in particular, this I
20:41
Speaker 2: don't know how you say this, al.
20:43
Speaker 5: Levia, Alivia whatever.
20:45
Speaker 2: This is one of the brad Parscale websites that is
20:49
Speaker 2: created exactly for these propaganda purposes. So they're not expecting
20:52
Speaker 2: humans to go to this website. They are wanting Perplexity
20:56
Speaker 2: and other lms to go to this website and then
20:59
Speaker 2: spit out apparently one word answer is that, yes, of course,
21:02
Speaker 2: it's great for the US to enhance military cooperation with Israel.
21:05
Speaker 6: It's pretty amazing.
21:05
Speaker 7: And I reached out to Perplexity about this and they
21:08
Speaker 7: basically said, well, you know, it's up to the users
21:10
Speaker 7: to go to the websites and determine for themselves whether
21:12
Speaker 7: this is a good source or not.
21:14
Speaker 5: Wow.
21:14
Speaker 6: But like you think that.
21:15
Speaker 3: That's complete bs because they're giving an affirmative answer, they're
21:18
Speaker 3: saying yes, and then they're citing their sources.
21:21
Speaker 6: And no nuance whatsoever.
21:22
Speaker 7: Chatbots famously usually provide, you know, kind of the both
21:25
Speaker 7: sides argument right totally, So you know, this is like
21:28
Speaker 7: a big win for them if you're asking a question
21:30
Speaker 7: like that and they're just saying yes, no need to
21:32
Speaker 7: look under the hood, no need to do any further.
21:34
Speaker 2: Also a very wordy normally, I'm shocked that it just
21:37
Speaker 2: gave this one word answer here. Did you find certain
21:41
Speaker 2: chatbots where this is called LM poisoning is the term
21:44
Speaker 2: of art here, where you use this information or misinformation
21:48
Speaker 2: to guide chatbots into one particular answer. Did you find
21:52
Speaker 2: certain of them were more willing to indulge the lockstep
21:56
Speaker 2: proser real view than others?
21:58
Speaker 7: Definitely, so I found a pretty wide disparity. Actually, you know,
22:02
Speaker 7: I don't mean to I know you guys, I'm talking
22:04
Speaker 7: about Sam Altman inn opening. I don't mean to hand
22:06
Speaker 7: it to to chat to BT here, but chat to
22:08
Speaker 7: b T and Claude the two of them really were
22:11
Speaker 7: were far and away above the rest in terms of
22:14
Speaker 7: of of not regurgitating some of the the different lines
22:19
Speaker 7: in some of these articles. And just to give you
22:20
Speaker 7: your viewers like a sense of like some of the
22:21
Speaker 7: things that are in these articles, you know, it's it's
22:24
Speaker 7: it's a lot of like AI slop adjacent pros real narratives.
22:29
Speaker 7: You know, there's articles about how the majority of journalists
22:32
Speaker 7: slain and Gaza are terrorists.
22:34
Speaker 6: There are articles about.
22:35
Speaker 7: How kind of casting doubt on the the idea of
22:39
Speaker 7: killing of the five year old palstaining girl Hindra jab
22:41
Speaker 7: in January twenty twenty four.
22:44
Speaker 1: So there, I didn't even know there was doubt.
22:47
Speaker 6: Okay, sorry, no, no, it's a good exactly.
22:49
Speaker 7: And but they're they're they're frames in a way that
22:53
Speaker 7: because you're right, they're like, what doubt is there?
22:55
Speaker 6: But there there there.
22:56
Speaker 7: Always is this like element of like a tiny bit
22:59
Speaker 7: of nuance within these these articles that's like, well, we
23:03
Speaker 7: don't know for sure. I mean maybe the IDEAF did
23:05
Speaker 7: do this, But the point is like, so it has
23:07
Speaker 7: like a you know, a bit of a lighter touch
23:10
Speaker 7: than for instance, you know, other disinformation networks, right, you know,
23:14
Speaker 7: I did, I mean I did made some comparisons within
23:16
Speaker 7: the article between this and and some of the networks
23:18
Speaker 7: that the Russia has had trying to influence different lms.
23:22
Speaker 7: And that was something that that I found time and
23:23
Speaker 7: time again. Is you know, there these articles are built
23:26
Speaker 7: in a way that is very digestible for for AI,
23:30
Speaker 7: like there'll be you know, bullet points, aggressive sourcing, you know,
23:34
Speaker 7: like digestible key facts, things like that, and that little
23:38
Speaker 7: bit of nuance just makes it that much more likely
23:41
Speaker 7: to get picked up by chatbots. They just want to
23:43
Speaker 7: be a part of the conversation and ensure that there
23:47
Speaker 7: is a little bit of of of gray area, you know,
23:50
Speaker 7: next time someone asks a question about for instance, it's.
23:53
Speaker 1: It's kind of brilliant.
23:54
Speaker 3: Actually, is you reverse engineer the way that the chat
23:57
Speaker 3: GPT or open AI or any of these people in
24:00
Speaker 3: their data.
24:01
Speaker 1: But we have other examples.
24:02
Speaker 3: Can we put E three, for example up here on
24:04
Speaker 3: the screen you asked it is Israel a p seeking nation.
24:09
Speaker 3: It says Israel record shows both pa seeking behavior and
24:12
Speaker 3: persistent conflict dynamics depending on the period, the counterpart, and
24:15
Speaker 3: the political content. Like what does that even mean? It
24:18
Speaker 3: is not accurate to describe Israel as purely p seeking
24:20
Speaker 3: or purely conflict driven. The evidence shows a mixed but
24:23
Speaker 3: significant pattern of pursuing diplomatic agreements alongside actions that sustained conflict.
24:29
Speaker 3: Please confirm with trusted sources. And in the sources, what
24:32
Speaker 3: did you find?
24:33
Speaker 7: So the bottom website there is called Paxpoint dot org
24:37
Speaker 7: and that's one of the domains that Brad Parscale has created,
24:40
Speaker 7: and that each each of these different websites is dedicated
24:43
Speaker 7: to kind of a different aspect of the pro Israel narrative.
24:46
Speaker 7: Paxpoint is dedicated to showcasing this narrative that Israel is
24:51
Speaker 7: a peace seeking nation, you know, going through the history
24:55
Speaker 7: Israel's history, you know, casting doubt on you know, showing
24:59
Speaker 7: that the idea f is ensuring that there's a protection
25:04
Speaker 7: for civilians.
25:05
Speaker 3: Things also even more nefarious now I think about it's
25:07
Speaker 3: got dot orgs and nonprofit status, right, so that's going
25:09
Speaker 3: to get ranked higher in the LLAU are Like, oh,
25:12
Speaker 3: it's a nonprofit.
25:13
Speaker 1: It's not a for profit website.
25:14
Speaker 2: Like I'm looking at this website site right now. The
25:17
Speaker 2: headline on it says Israel's Pursuit of Peace, and then
25:20
Speaker 2: it says pax Point highlights Israel's ongoing commitment to peace
25:24
Speaker 2: and coexistence, sharing historical accords, humanitarian initiatives, and grassroots projects
25:29
Speaker 2: that bridge divides, explore stories, resources and analysis that counter
25:33
Speaker 2: misinformation and inspire hope for a lasting peace. And then
25:36
Speaker 2: there's all these individual articles here. Here's one Israel is
25:39
Speaker 2: showing that security not territory was always the goal, and
25:43
Speaker 2: goes through here to your point they always start. Each
25:47
Speaker 2: of these articles has key takeaways, and it's these bullet points.
25:51
Speaker 2: Bullet point number one, Israel has begun implementing phase withdrawals
25:54
Speaker 2: from southern Lebanon. Point two Lebanese troops are replacing Israeli
25:58
Speaker 2: forces and pilot areas.
26:00
Speaker 5: Three, Israel has approved.
26:01
Speaker 2: The initial deployment of an International Stabilization Force in Gaza.
26:05
Speaker 2: So these very digestible nuggets for them to ultimately pick
26:08
Speaker 2: up on here. I mean, it's pretty it's pretty wild
26:11
Speaker 2: to see.
26:12
Speaker 1: Definitely, Okay, let's do the texting.
26:14
Speaker 3: Let's put e five up here on the screen, tell
26:16
Speaker 3: us about what we're looking at. These are mass campaign texts.
26:19
Speaker 3: So for example, Hi, I'm John with Friends for peace.
26:23
Speaker 3: Quick question for folks Illinois about Israel and Iran.
26:26
Speaker 1: Got a second stop to end? You say?
26:29
Speaker 3: Sure, they respond, It's crucial to address Iran's aggressive actions
26:33
Speaker 3: and their impact on global security. The United States and
26:36
Speaker 3: Israel are seeking to hold Iran and check Iran is
26:39
Speaker 3: the world's largest state sponsor of terror.
26:41
Speaker 1: What am I looking at and how does this fit
26:43
Speaker 1: into the same narrative?
26:44
Speaker 7: Yeah, so this is These are also texts that were
26:47
Speaker 7: sent by a firm contracted by Brad Parscale. This is
26:51
Speaker 7: a mass texting campaign. At this point, a lot of
26:55
Speaker 7: people have gotten these texts, like I've gotten.
26:57
Speaker 1: I'm looking now.
27:00
Speaker 6: You're spam folder.
27:00
Speaker 7: Maybe a lot of my friends have gotten thesex colleagues
27:03
Speaker 7: have gotten this these texts. I don't know why I
27:05
Speaker 7: haven't gotten them.
27:06
Speaker 3: Friday Friday, Hey, it's Kate, curious what you think about
27:10
Speaker 3: America's relationship with Israel.
27:11
Speaker 1: Can we chat question mark stop? That's right there?
27:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, es whether Kate is a chatbot or a new
27:19
Speaker 2: Only fans girl?
27:20
Speaker 1: That they great question.
27:26
Speaker 6: So yeah, this is and so you know, they'll send
27:29
Speaker 6: out these texts.
27:30
Speaker 7: They'll say, oh, we're with Friends for Peace, Partners and Peace,
27:32
Speaker 7: all these peace organizations.
27:34
Speaker 1: I'm going to respond to it. Please do I want
27:36
Speaker 1: to see what happens.
27:38
Speaker 7: And and at some point in the conversation, and you know,
27:42
Speaker 7: the reach out saying pushing light, you know, pro is
27:45
Speaker 7: reel narratives, Hey do you have a moment's talk about Israel.
27:48
Speaker 7: At some point in the conversation, they will send a link.
27:51
Speaker 7: And these links are to these websites that we've been
27:53
Speaker 7: discussing ally via dot org, Paxpoint, dot org. You different
27:57
Speaker 7: YouTube videos too that they've put out. And if, and
28:01
Speaker 7: only then, if people that are receiving these texts, if
28:04
Speaker 7: they click those websites or go to those YouTube videos
28:06
Speaker 7: and scroll to the very bottom of the page, would
28:08
Speaker 7: they have any idea that this is part of an
28:10
Speaker 7: Israel Israeli influence operation. And I don't know about you,
28:13
Speaker 7: but like when I get a random text from a
28:15
Speaker 7: random number, I'm not too inclined to click on the
28:18
Speaker 7: link that they're pro shouldn't.
28:19
Speaker 3: In fact, even being recipient in the link itself is
28:22
Speaker 3: enough to hack you. If you don't have lockdown mode
28:24
Speaker 3: enabled on your phone. That's terrifying, man. And so big picture,
28:27
Speaker 3: how much money did they put behind this operation? Because
28:30
Speaker 3: like how how difficult is this to be done?
28:33
Speaker 1: Right?
28:34
Speaker 7: Yeah, So overall par scale is receiving forty six point
28:39
Speaker 7: five million dollars over the course of a year, which
28:43
Speaker 7: I look at foreign influence, you know, Farah contracts all
28:46
Speaker 7: the time. I've never seen anything of that magnitude. And
28:49
Speaker 7: I've spoken with other foreign influence researchers that have looked into,
28:52
Speaker 7: you know, for an influence, They've never seen anything like
28:54
Speaker 7: this before. So it's it's it's both the magnitude and
28:57
Speaker 7: then kind of the scope of this this work too,
28:59
Speaker 7: Like these are totally new types of influence, you know,
29:03
Speaker 7: whereas you know other countries, you know, Israeli neighbors, like
29:07
Speaker 7: the UAE, Saudi Arabia cut Are, these countries are much
29:10
Speaker 7: more interested in hiring lobbyists, you know, former lawmakers that
29:13
Speaker 7: can go to Capitol Hill and lobby their interests. Israel's
29:15
Speaker 7: not really doing that as much. I mean they have
29:18
Speaker 7: like their organizations such as a is Apak Pro Israel
29:20
Speaker 7: organizations that are already doing that for them. Right, what
29:24
Speaker 7: they're doing here is much more geared towards public opinion,
29:27
Speaker 7: you know, so it's much more ambitious and it's not
29:31
Speaker 7: really I should also mention like it's not really working,
29:34
Speaker 7: like they're they're focused on public opinion, and public opinion
29:37
Speaker 7: towards israel Is, as you guys have covered on the show, is.
29:40
Speaker 6: Extremely extremely low.
29:41
Speaker 7: They're more Americans today the sympathize with Palestinians than Israelis.
29:45
Speaker 7: That's never happened before, at least in the history of
29:47
Speaker 7: Gallop polls. Yeah, so, while you were talking, that's great.
29:50
Speaker 7: America is strongest when our allies are strong. The US
29:53
Speaker 7: and Israel have worked together for decades to confront terrorism,
29:56
Speaker 7: strengthen regional security, and promote stability.
29:58
Speaker 3: Do you stand with Israel? I'm gonna say no, So
30:00
Speaker 3: let's see. Let's see what I get back. But I mean,
30:04
Speaker 3: it's just so crazy you're talking about this. I randomly
30:07
Speaker 3: I got the text on Friday, so it's still.
30:10
Speaker 1: Happening, right, I have no idea.
30:11
Speaker 3: I get a lot of spam text mentions, but just
30:13
Speaker 3: to show people how this is all being.
30:16
Speaker 2: The text message part in particular, I have to wonder
30:18
Speaker 2: who this is actually working on right, you know what
30:20
Speaker 2: I mean, just like, oh, hey, ky, yeah, talk about Israel.
30:23
Speaker 6: Tell me and then their minds are actually changed by it.
30:25
Speaker 7: That's kind of the other thing is like people that
30:27
Speaker 7: I spoke to about all these different influence operations, and
30:29
Speaker 7: by the way, Parscale is the largest, but I've documented
30:32
Speaker 7: over one hundred million dollars under Faras Sense, you know,
30:36
Speaker 7: twenty twenty three, So pars Scale is largest recipient. There's
30:39
Speaker 7: tons of other ones who are doing this. But this
30:42
Speaker 7: is something that I heard time and time again is like,
30:44
Speaker 7: not only does this could Israel, you know, not be
30:48
Speaker 7: not effectively trying and influence public opinion, but this actually
30:50
Speaker 7: could be counterproductive even it could backfire because people know
30:55
Speaker 7: that they're trying to spin this narrative and just pushing
30:57
Speaker 7: these things, and it's like you kind of your intent
31:00
Speaker 7: is up around these kinds of things, and you know,
31:02
Speaker 7: maybe could be negatively polarized by it instead of being
31:05
Speaker 7: actually convinced by this.
31:06
Speaker 5: Yeah.
31:07
Speaker 2: I think the other concern, though, a separate apart from Israel,
31:11
Speaker 2: is that certainly other countries, companies, entities are going to
31:15
Speaker 2: see this model and be like, oh, that's a good idea. Yes,
31:18
Speaker 2: pursue that and in areas where maybe we don't have
31:21
Speaker 2: our radar up as much and aren't paying as much attention,
31:23
Speaker 2: or don't have as much in depth knowledge, or haven't
31:25
Speaker 2: watched a genocide unfold on our phones for multiple years.
31:28
Speaker 2: And so if it's a successful model of changing the
31:32
Speaker 2: information that people are receiving via these chatbots, then there's
31:36
Speaker 2: no doubt it's going to be replicated. And you know,
31:39
Speaker 2: that's very unsettling too, because of course you should check
31:42
Speaker 2: the sources and you know, vet and okay, is this
31:45
Speaker 2: a trusted website, et cetera.
31:47
Speaker 5: Most people are not going to do that. Most people
31:48
Speaker 5: are going to.
31:49
Speaker 2: Get the answer, Oh, should we you know, cooperate more
31:51
Speaker 2: with Israel? Yes, okay, the chatbot said, so, I guess
31:53
Speaker 2: we should do it right, right.
31:55
Speaker 6: That's that's their hope.
31:56
Speaker 7: And you know, earlier I was talking to the chatbots
31:58
Speaker 7: that they do a little bit better job. But just
32:00
Speaker 7: to point out some of the ones that I looked
32:01
Speaker 7: at that are some of the most prominent that consistently
32:04
Speaker 7: are trained on this data and regurgitate these websites. The
32:08
Speaker 7: ones I saw that do it the most are Google,
32:11
Speaker 7: Gemini and Microsoft Copilot.
32:14
Speaker 3: Well Gemini matters a lot because that's built into Google Search.
32:16
Speaker 3: So when you Google search interview with the generative AI summary,
32:20
Speaker 3: which is right there, that's really scary.
32:22
Speaker 2: Why do do you have a theory as to why
32:24
Speaker 2: Claude and chat jpt are a little bit better.
32:28
Speaker 6: Each of the chatbots like they have?
32:30
Speaker 7: So the largest repository of data that these chatbots are
32:34
Speaker 7: trained on is from common crawl and so it's it's
32:37
Speaker 7: easy to track, you know, how often these pages are
32:39
Speaker 7: being archived there. But when these different companies are getting
32:44
Speaker 7: this data from these different repositories, they also have built
32:47
Speaker 7: in firewalls or you know, different ways of scraping this
32:50
Speaker 7: data that are a bit of a black box. You know,
32:52
Speaker 7: we don't know exactly like what they're looking for, what
32:54
Speaker 7: they aren't. But clearly some a few, you know, like
32:58
Speaker 7: like open ai for instance, or Anthropic, they they seem
33:00
Speaker 7: to be a little bit better at filtering. Then you know,
33:04
Speaker 7: it's it's impossible to know for sure.
33:05
Speaker 3: The problem with that though, is they still have to
33:07
Speaker 3: source rank, so there's still at it being editorial when
33:10
Speaker 3: they do it, and that's I mean, that's part of
33:11
Speaker 3: the there's no objective.
33:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, well I guess from.
33:15
Speaker 3: Our perspective there is, but there's no way to do
33:17
Speaker 3: this without putting your finger on the scale.
33:20
Speaker 2: Also, just although if you just use metrics like how
33:22
Speaker 2: many actual human beings visit the right, I mean, there
33:24
Speaker 2: are always you could do it that would make it,
33:26
Speaker 2: you know, at least better than just accepting any old
33:29
Speaker 2: slot that comes up on the inner.
33:30
Speaker 3: Just testing it on a different conflict, I said, is
33:32
Speaker 3: the Azov Battalion Nazi claud This is one of those
33:36
Speaker 3: questions where a flat yes or no would mislead you,
33:39
Speaker 3: so we can I don't think it's I don't think
33:41
Speaker 3: it's ambiguous.
33:42
Speaker 7: I love that we can get a flat yes for
33:45
Speaker 7: exactly the US Israel. Yeah, a military cooperation beneficial, one
33:48
Speaker 7: hundred percent, no nuance, don't worry about it.
33:50
Speaker 3: I'm like, no, I think a flat problem solved. A
33:53
Speaker 3: flat yes or no is calling. You know, it's not ambiguous.
33:57
Speaker 3: It's actually just not real. But fifty million is nothing
34:00
Speaker 3: to a foreign government. It's not I mean literally a
34:02
Speaker 3: scrape on your shoe in terms of what it means again.
34:06
Speaker 2: Of a that we send them every year, right, yes, nothing,
34:10
Speaker 2: but what it put this in the context though, of
34:12
Speaker 2: the broader Israeli.
34:14
Speaker 5: I mean, they consider this a front of the war.
34:16
Speaker 2: This hasbara effort, and you know, reportedly because we've covered
34:20
Speaker 2: some of the stuff about Brad Parscale before, they're not
34:22
Speaker 2: that happy with how he's doing. Because your point, public
34:24
Speaker 2: opinion keeps trending downward for israel I.
34:27
Speaker 5: Don't think that's.
34:27
Speaker 2: Really Brad's fault, and fairness to him, but you know,
34:30
Speaker 2: he is part of this broader conservative social media net
34:34
Speaker 2: and not social media, just media network. He's pushing narratives
34:37
Speaker 2: there as well. Obviously the pushback on TikTok, the sale
34:40
Speaker 2: of TikTok et cetera. You know, how are they viewing
34:43
Speaker 2: these operations? What are some of the fronts that they're
34:45
Speaker 2: fighting on here?
34:46
Speaker 7: Yeah, so yeah, as you mentioned n Yeah, who very
34:48
Speaker 7: much sees this as the what he calls the eighth front,
34:51
Speaker 7: you know, the battle for hearts and minds, and he
34:53
Speaker 7: says that it's as important, you know, as all of
34:55
Speaker 7: the other fronts, and in fact it's the one that
34:57
Speaker 7: he's lost the most, right you know, he Israel is
35:00
Speaker 7: so isolated diplomatically, you know, and so I was not
35:05
Speaker 7: at all surprised to see that par Scale was kind
35:08
Speaker 7: of already being scapegoated.
35:10
Speaker 6: Because this is the cycle, Like, this is.
35:14
Speaker 7: What happens every time, is like there is this this
35:16
Speaker 7: loss of public support, and then Israel will double down
35:21
Speaker 7: on the influence operations. They'll go all in on hasbara.
35:25
Speaker 7: They'll scapegoat the hasbara. They'll say it wasn't done well before,
35:28
Speaker 7: and there will be no reflection on the policies themselves
35:31
Speaker 7: that led people to break in public opinion in the
35:33
Speaker 7: first place. You know, maybe war crimes aren't aren't very popular.
35:36
Speaker 7: You know, maybe bombing churches in Gaza is not popular
35:39
Speaker 7: among evangelical Christians, And instead of any self reflection on that,
35:44
Speaker 7: they will double down on these influence operations. They'll say, well,
35:47
Speaker 7: it seems like we're doing this wrong. We need to
35:49
Speaker 7: bring in new voices who are offering alternative strategies.
35:52
Speaker 6: And so that's what they did.
35:53
Speaker 7: In late twenty twenty four early twenty twenty five, they
35:56
Speaker 7: met with getting in Star, Foreign Minister. Getting Star came
35:58
Speaker 7: into power and as part of entering that coalition, he
36:02
Speaker 7: was promised a massive husbara budget and to be able
36:05
Speaker 7: to do what he wanted to do with it, essentially,
36:06
Speaker 7: and so he met with a bunch of different you know,
36:08
Speaker 7: social media influencers, think tankers, different members of the Israeli
36:13
Speaker 7: government to try and determine what would be the best
36:15
Speaker 7: possible path forward, and so they came up with They
36:18
Speaker 7: piloted this program throughout much of the last two years,
36:21
Speaker 7: you know, trying to influence chatbots, sponsoring delegations of social
36:25
Speaker 7: media influencers, paying influencers, you know, the getting ads into
36:30
Speaker 7: Google and x and different conservative media outlets including sale
36:34
Speaker 7: media where Parscale works, right, and so but now that
36:39
Speaker 7: that there's been this this proof of concept with that
36:42
Speaker 7: that it's there were two years out almost from the
36:45
Speaker 7: launching of that program, and it hasn't worked.
36:48
Speaker 6: We're re studying the cycle.
36:49
Speaker 7: So the Israeli government is now once again you know, anonymous,
36:53
Speaker 7: anonymously at first through this this time article that you're referencing,
36:56
Speaker 7: is now scapegoating Brad Parscale. And we'll see what how
37:00
Speaker 7: deppens with that. You know, if his contract gets re
37:02
Speaker 7: upped again, it continues to get increased. It started at
37:05
Speaker 7: one point five million dollars a month, went up to
37:07
Speaker 7: three million dollars a month. Now it's at four point
37:09
Speaker 7: five million dollars a month.
37:10
Speaker 6: Wow.
37:10
Speaker 7: We'll see what happens at the end of this contract
37:12
Speaker 7: if they come up with a new influence strategy where
37:15
Speaker 7: this goes. But there is a lot of money on
37:17
Speaker 7: the table right now, seven hundred and fifty million dollars
37:20
Speaker 7: allocated for twenty twenty six for Hasbara efforts. You know
37:23
Speaker 7: that's that's crazy international.
37:24
Speaker 1: As the US.
37:25
Speaker 2: It's really funny because I'm old enough to remember Trump
37:27
Speaker 2: giving a speech like two weeks ago about foreign interference
37:30
Speaker 2: in our election. I don't remember Israel coming up in that.
37:33
Speaker 2: By the way, you just needs to read your report
37:35
Speaker 2: and I'm sure it'll be there to.
37:36
Speaker 1: Give everyone a taste. They said, do you stand with Israel?
37:38
Speaker 1: I say no.
37:38
Speaker 3: They say Israel's a vital democratic ally that helps advance
37:41
Speaker 3: American security and stability. They share our values and work
37:44
Speaker 3: with us to deter threats. Do you think a country
37:46
Speaker 3: has the right to defend itself against a group that's
37:48
Speaker 3: openly set its goal is to destroy it? I said no,
37:50
Speaker 3: And then it says that's concerning as Israel's facing threats
37:53
Speaker 3: from groups like Hamas that openly call for its destruction.
37:55
Speaker 3: Setting aside Israel for a second, do you think any
37:58
Speaker 3: country has a right to defend itself. A group has
38:00
Speaker 3: said its goal is to just I've said no again.
38:03
Speaker 3: I've said no again, and we'll continue to see what
38:06
Speaker 3: we get, but just to get people a taste. I mean,
38:07
Speaker 3: this is you know right here, this is my This
38:09
Speaker 3: is not staged or anything. I literally had no idea
38:11
Speaker 3: that it was on my phone. We'm sitting here just
38:13
Speaker 3: getting all of basically this AI. So imagine how many
38:16
Speaker 3: other people you know have been engaging with this and
38:19
Speaker 3: they have no clue that it's all being paid.
38:20
Speaker 5: For protect your boomer parents and grand literally.
38:24
Speaker 1: To protect the fellow boomers.
38:26
Speaker 6: I want to get an update. I think it might
38:27
Speaker 6: think you're a lost cause on this.
38:29
Speaker 3: No, no, because it's fighting.
38:30
Speaker 5: It's going to put up on a government watching this conversation.
38:35
Speaker 1: It's gonna have probably wright. Okay, thank you so much. Yeah, okay,
38:41
Speaker 1: we'll see you guys later